Category: Books Page 1 of 7

WERE THERE TWO CIVIL WARS OR JUST ONE?

I have just finished reading the “Civil War in Dublin” by John Dorney. Dorney describes himself as an independent historian.

I have a minor quibble with the title of the book, which refers to “THE” Civil War, suggesting that there was only one Civil War.

I would argue that there were in fact two Irish civil wars……the first one from 1919 to 1921, and the second one from 1922 to 1923.

I would argue that the 1919 to 1921 War, the War of Independence, was also an Irish civil war.  I say this because Irish people fought on both sides in both wars.  In fact, I believe most of the people who died on both sides were also in fact Irish.

The members of RIC, who opposed the IRA, were predominantly Irish (and Catholic too if that matters). Failing to recognise the Irishness of the many natives of this 32 county island, who fought on pro Union side in the War of Independence, is a barrier to reconciliation of all the communities on this island.

If one looks up the excellent book “The Dead of the Irish Revolution” by O Halpin and O Corrain, covering the period 1916 to 1921, one can confirm that those killed by the IRA were predominantly Irish, such as magistrates, RIC members and supposed informers. Some of these people were Protestants, and wanted Ireland to remain part of the UK, but THIS does not makes them any less Irish!

The fact that Irish people fought on both sides in the 1919/1921 war, makes it an Irish civil war.

Those killed in the first military action of the War of Independence in January 1919,  were members of the RIC, James McDonnell from Belmullet, Patrick O Connell from Coachford Co Cork,  and both were Irish Catholics.

The first magistrate to be killed, Jack Milling from Glasson Co Westmeath, as an Irish Protestant. He was shot through the front window of his house on the Newport Road in Westport Co Mayo, when he was winding up the clock. In his front room. His family subsequently settled in Armagh.

I make these points, not as a criticism of John Dorney’s book, but as a reminder that if we want reconciliation on this island, we must recognise those born on this island, who profess allegiance to King Charles, who feel British, also have an Irish birthright, and are fully Irish. Some will find it difficult to come to terms with this, but it will have to be done.

The political vandals, who opposed the idea of recalling by name, on a wall in Glasnevin cemetery the people  who died on BOTH sides in the 1919/21 war, were promoting a version of what it is to be Irish, that is deeply exclusionary.  They were saying that , if you supported a continuing link with Britain during the  1919/21 War, you were not Irish and did not deserve to be  remembered by name on a wall. They were telling the Irish people , who fought on the other side,  that they and their beliefs were to be cancelled (to use the modern term.) If this attitude persists we will never have lasting peace  or reconciliation  on this island

We need a fair minded presentation of painful historic events, that forces people to reflect on their own prejudices. John Dorney does that in regard to what I will call the Second Irish Civil War, from 1922 to 1923.

 John Dorney is a graduate in history and politics from UCD and is a native of Rathfarnham. He manages a website on Irish history called “The Irish Story”.

The interim period between the Truce of 11 July 1921 and the opening of the Civil War almost a year later, was one during which there was no clear and well-established authority in the state.  People took the law into their own hands. Order had broken down and, without order, laws cannot be enforced. The longer that continued, the more respect for laws would be eroded.

Something had to be done to restore unitary authority across the full territory of the state. To my mind, the civil war was fought to restore order and thereby make laws meaningful.

What led to this situation?

A peace Treaty had been signed between the UK government and an Irish Delegation, led by Arthur Griffith, representing Dail Eireann in December 1921. This Treaty was approved by a majority in Dail Eireann on 7 January 1922.  

That should have settled matters. But a large part of the IRA membership did not accept the decision of Dail Eireann to accept the Treaty.

The biggest objection to the Treaty was that it required TDs to swear an oath of

  “allegiance to the constitution of the Irish Free State” (which was established under the Treaty.)  and to be “faithful to King George and his successors.”

It seems to me that the wording here creates the stronger tie to Ireland and its constitution, than does the “faithfulness” to King George. In any event, it was not worth falling out over.

We know now, with the benefit hindsight, that the Treaty was capable of being amended (as are all treaties), and that capable of being a steppingstone to greater independence, as Michael Collins said at the time.

As the argument raged in the early months of 1922 over the wording of the Treaty, the IRA broke down into two factions, and each scrambled to occupy key installations in the capital and around the country. Attempts to heal the split failed.

Generally speaking, the anti Treaty side seized installations in the southern half of the country, and the National Army took control elsewhere.

 In Dublin, Anti Treaty forces, led by Rory O Connor, occupied the Four Courts and made it their headquarters. They also seized the Kildare Street Club, of which many Anglo Irish gentry were members, and the hall where the Orange Order used to meet in Dublin.

One has the sense that these buildings were chosen for their propaganda or symbolic value, rather than for their military defensibility. Indeed a preoccupation with symbolism underlaid the problems of Anti Treaty political thinking.

As said earlier, the majority of the IRA opposed the Treaty. This was the case in Dublin too. Only 1900 of the 4400 IRA members in Dublin were pro Treaty.

Yet when the fighting started , the National Army were able to dislodge the anti Treaty from their strongholds in Dublin quite quickly. The Four Courts was taken with the aid of artillery.  The buildings, held by anti Treaty forces in the vicinity of O Connell Street, were taken in a few days of, building to building fighting, not unlike the fighting in Stalingrad 20 years later.

Why was the war in Dublin over so quickly, but dragged in the rest of the country for 10 months?

The National Army may have been outnumbered at the outset of the war, but they were better equipped, with material supplied by the British. They also had much more support from the general public, which meant they had better intelligence.

They were better led too. The Free State government had a clear sense of purpose, that of establishing the institutions of a new European state.

The  anti Treaty side were, both militarily and mentally, on the defensive from the beginning, holding positions and waiting to be attacked, rather than advancing to take positions held by the Free State.

The Military wing of the anti Treaty formation, led by Liam Lynch, made the key decisions and the civilian leadership of Eamon de Valera was almost completely sidelined. They were also fighting to defend something ephemeral, a Republic proclaimed at the GPO in 1916, which had no government, no visible or tangible existence. It was an idea, not a reality.

In contrast, the Free State was established the basis that civilian leadership was paramount over the Army.

When Michael Collins took over as Chief of Staff of the Army, he handed over his position as President of the Executive Council to WT Cosgrave. Even when Michael Collins himself was killed in action in August 1922, there was a seamless transition of responsibilities.

Soon, as a result of intensive recruitment, the National Army would have a huge numerical advantage over the Anti Treaty side.

Why was the Free State able to recruit so many troops, so quickly?

Only a small proportion of the population had been involved in War of Independence, and not everybody had voted for Sinn Fein in the 1918 Election. This left a large pool from which soldiers could be recruited by the National Army. The National Army was also able to recruit among those that were unemployed, including those who had fought in the Great War.

This was a brutal and cruel civil war. The anti Treaty forces wanted to bankrupt the Free State by blowing up its infrastructure. One such plan was to blow up all the road and rail bridges leading to and from Dublin. This was a failure and numerous  anti Treaty prisoners were taken.

This book gives an account of the execution without trial of anti Treaty soldiers. Some of these executions were part of a planned campaign to intimidate the opponents of the Treaty  and get them to give up their armed resistance to it. The policy on executions without trial may have shortened the civil war, but it undermined the case that the Free State was fighting. It was hard to justify and no one was held to account for it.

Other actions were undertaken , on an unauthorised basis , by groups within the National Army, who were out of control.

The worst case, in my mind, is the killing of Edwin Hughes, Brendan Holohan and John Rogers. These were unarmed teenagers caught distributing a leaflet in Drumcondra calling for the killing of Free State soldiers. The bodies  of these young boys were found the next day in a quarry near Clondalkin.

All urban centres had been secured for the Free State by the end of August, but the fighting continued on hit and run basis well unto 1923, using tactics refined in the war against the British between 1919 and 1921. Unarmed civilians were targeted by both sides.

 The Anti Treaty forces finally gave up in May 1923, and they dumped their arms.

Although this book is sub titled the Civil War in Dublin, it gives a fairly full account of developments outside Dublin.  It is a comprehensive piece of work and I recommend it.

I believe the civil war flowed from the War of Independence which in turn flowed from 1916 which was a response to the militarisation of politics by the Ulster Volunteers. Violence begets violence. It rarely serves any useful purpose.

I have just finished reading a truly excellent book , which I recommend to anyone who is interested in the history of modern France.

It is entitled “France on Trial, the case of Marshal Petain”   and is by Julian Jackson. It is published this year by Penguin books.

It describes the trial of Marshall Philippe Petain, which took place only a few weeks after the war ended, and uses it to do two things

• look back at the events that led to France’s humiliating defeat in 1940, and
• look forward to the present day ,to see how France remembers, and commemorates, its behaviour between 1940 and 1945, especially vis a vis Jewish people.

Petain was the great French war hero of the First World War, especially through his leadership in the crucial Battle of Verdun in 1916. Through this, he had acquired a God like status.

Petain was long retired from the Army by the 1930’s, and thus  he had no responsibility for the strategic error of the French High Command  that led to the defeat  of May 1940.

This error was sending the French Army deep into Belgium, when Germany attacked that country .  This created a gap in French defences which allowed the Germans to encircle a large portion of the Allied armies from the rear, in the vicinity of Dunkirk.

The consequences of this mistake discredited those who has held office in France in the period immediately before the war.

 This included former Prime Ministers Daladier and Reynaud. Both of these ex Prime Ministers gave evidence in Petain’s trial. So did another ex PM, Pierre Laval, who was later to be tried and executed,  for treason in 1945.

The author says that for Laval

“no cause, however noble, could justify a war”

He had been Prime Minister in the 1930s and wanted reconciliation with Italy.  

During the War he said that he favoured German victory, a matter on which Petain wisely offered no opinion.

 When the Germans surrendered in 1945, Laval escaped to Spain, but Franco did not want him.

According to the author, Laval was then offered asylum by the Irish government, presumably on the Taoiseach Eamon de Valera’s instructions.

I have never read any exploration of this issue in books about de Valera. Laval could have proved an embarrassing guest for Ireland. In the event, Laval opted to return to France and face a trial which he must have known would sentence him the death, rather that live peacefully in Ireland.

 Reverting to the dilemma faced by the French government in 1940, after the shock of the encirclement had worn off, the French Army resisted the Germans bravely and effectively in central France.

But the damage to public morale , caused by the initial defeat , was too deep.

 Could the French Army could have resisted long enough to retreat  With their government to Algeria (technically part of France) ?

Some of Petain’s accusers argued that he should have taken this option, and  have ordered the army to fight on ,rather than seek an armistice from the Germans.

Others criticised him for not joining the Americans when they landed in North Africa in 1942. Instead the authorised the French Army in North Africa to resist the Americans. This was interpreted by many as treason.

How did Petain come to be in charge in late 1940 and thus be in a position to make these choices ?

The previous French Government headed by Paul Reynaud, had retreated from Paris to Bordeaux after the initial defeat in May 1940. But it needed a new leader. It turned to Petain, as an untainted national leader, to head a new Government.

It was almost as if the politicians gathered in Bordeaux felt  they needed the  “Petain magic” to restore France.

This was the hope, on the basis of which the French National Assembly made Petain head of state, soon with unlimited powers.

This was never a viable project.

If Petain had thought things through, he would never have lent himself to such a dubious and hopeless endeavour. His vanity got the better of him. 

Even if Germany had won the war, and had come to terms with Britain, the prestige of Petain would not have sufficed to wipe France’s humiliation away.

How informative were the proceedings at the trial?

With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that were some issues that were explored too much in the trial, and others that deserved more attention.

A big part of the prosecution case was that Petain had been long preparing himself for a French military defeat, and had been plotting  how to exploit defeat to grasp supreme power for himself  There was no evidence to back this.

The issue that got too little attention in the trial, in light of what we now know, was the active involvement of the French police, and of the Vichy government, in the transportation of the Jews to the gas chambers.

Petain’s defence team argued that by taking over the administration, from 1940 to 1943, of a large portion of the interior of the country, Petain’s regime had spared many French people, including French Jews, from the  horrors of  direct German occupation and that this saved lives.   

There is statistical evidence to back this up.

The survival rate of Jews  in France, at the end of the war , was much higher than that of Jews in Poland and the Netherlands, which were directly occupied by the Germans and where virtually every Jew was wiped out.

Another issue that could have got more attention was Munich Agreement with Hitler which sapped French morale.

Many of the themes evoked in this book are current today.

What is treason?

Is it treasonable to make the mistake of backing the loser?

Where is the line to be drawn between a bad political judgement , and treason?

Where is the boundary between making a legitimate political judgement, and betraying a cause that is, or appears, lost?

What constitutes a war crime? That had not been defined at the time.

Who should be the jury in a trial like this?

Petain’s jury consisted one half of serving deputies in the National Assembly, and the other half of recently active members of the Resistance.

This politicised the judicial system in a way that would not be allowed today.

This book also explores the emotions of the French people in the aftermath of an acute crisis. France has emerged as a strong democracy despite the trauma.

For the record, Petain was condemned to death at the end of the trial. But the jury anticipated, correctly, that de Gaulle would commute the sentence.

Petain died peacefully some years later.

The great merit of this book is the human stories it tells so well, prompting the reader to ask how he or she would have reacted if faced with the same dilemmas.

A STRUGGLE THAT HAS MODERN RELEVANCE

I really enjoyed reading “The Fall of the House of Dixie” written by   Bruce Levine and published by Random House. It combines a succinct account of the origins and course of the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865, with a deeper examination of public opinion in Confederacy.

The range of opinion in the states that  permitted slavery, was wide.

 Indeed four “slave states”, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and   Missouri never left the Union at all.. President Lincoln was keen to keep these states in the Union and that is why he did not abolish slavery in these states until the end of the War, whereas he liberated slaves elsewhere on 1 January 1863.

The most radical Southern advocates of leaving the Union to preserve slavery , were to be found in the Deep South, notably South Carolina ,whose state forces fired the first shot of the War.

Other more northerly states, like Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas, initially declined to join the Confederacy until forced to take sides by the course of events

During my five years closely observing US politics as EU Ambassador in Washington, I noted that, even to this day, these latter states tend to have a more moderate political stance than Deep South states.

Even within parts of states, voting patterns dating back to the stance taken in the Civil War, persist to this day eg in Eastern Tennessee

The “Deep South” states produced cotton and other crops, using a Plantation System, which would not have been workable without slave labour. The other states had other options.

A majority of the white population in the Confederate states did not own slaves, but slaves made up a significant share of the wealth of those who did, which explains why this section of the white population went to such lengths to protect slavery.

 As the slave trade had been abolished in 1808, slaves were valuable in financial terms. Slave owning was profitable. Poor whites , on the other hand, were driven into badly paid casual work because of competition from the slave system.

Why did non slave owning whites fight so hard to protect slavery?  

I think this can be partly explained by an almost religious sense of racial superiority, and by a fear of loss of relative status ,if slaves became free.

The condition of slaves was appalling. Slaves were whipped by their masters for transgressions.

 In practice many of them could not marry, because a husband could be sold to a different owner to the one that bought his wife.

In some states, slaves were forbidden to be educated. Even to this day, there is a lack of investment in  basic education in some of the former Confederate States.

The deep racism that underlay slavery came to light when, towards the end of the war, manpower for the Confederate Army was scarce.  An Irish general in the Confederate Army, Patrick Cleburne, proposed that Blacks be recruited to Confederate Army in return for being freed of slavery.

The Confederate War Department rejected the proposal on the grounds that Black people would not be suitable for military service on grounds of  “natural dullness, cowardice and indolence”. This was  racist ideological rubbish , as shown by the exceptional bravery of the Black Americans who fought in the Union Army. Black soldiers in the Union Army, if captured, were likely to be executed in defiance of the conventions of war.

 In the end, very few were recruited, to the Confederate forces, largely because the promise of liberation was confined to the soldier himself, and not to his wife and children.

What happened to the liberated slaves after the war was over?

This question is not explored as fully  in this book as I would have liked. In Georgia, a large part of the confiscated land in the state was allocated by Union General William Sherman to be given  in 40 acre holding to former slaves.

 But in other places, the confiscated land was sold off, at a discount, to speculators from the North. Elsewhere the ex slaves were left to their own devices.

Indeed an attempt was made to reintroduce elements of slavery through so called “black codes” which restricted free movement, and wage bargaining by ex slaves.

There is one issue , very topical today, which is touched on briefly….voting rights for African Americans.

In an impromptu speech, delivered just  after the War had ended, President Lincoln suggested that the newly liberated African Americans might be given the right to vote. One of the people in the audience for that speech was John Wilkes Booth, an actor . On hearing this suggestion, Booth immediately set about plotting to murder President Lincoln, an enterprise  which unfortunately he completed successfully.

As I said at the outset, this is an excellent book. It relies on private correspondence, as well as public statements,  to gain insights into public opinion in the Confederacy.

A STRUGGLE THAT HAS MODERN RELEVANCE

I really enjoyed reading “The Fall of the House of Dixie” written by   Bruce Levine and published by Random House. It combines a succinct account of the origins and course of the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865, with a deeper examination of public opinion in Confederacy.

The range of opinion in the states that  permitted slavery, was wide.

 Indeed four “slave states”, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and   Missouri never left the Union at all.. President Lincoln was keen to keep these states in the Union and that is why he did not abolish slavery in these states until the end of the War, whereas he liberated slaves elsewhere on 1 January 1863.

The most radical Southern advocates of leaving the Union to preserve slavery , were to be found in the Deep South, notably South Carolina ,whose state forces fired the first shot of the War.

Other more northerly states, like Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas, initially declined to join the Confederacy until forced to take sides by the course of events

During my five years closely observing US politics as EU Ambassador in Washington, I noted that, even to this day, these latter states tend to have a more moderate political stance than Deep South states.

Even within parts of states, voting patterns dating back to the stance taken in the Civil War, persist to this day eg in Eastern Tennessee

The “Deep South” states produced cotton and other crops, using a Plantation System, which would not have been workable without slave labour. The other states had other options.

A majority of the white population in the Confederate states did not own slaves, but slaves made up a significant share of the wealth of those who did, which explains why this section of the white population went to such lengths to protect slavery.

 As the slave trade had been abolished in 1808, slaves were valuable in financial terms. Slave owning was profitable. Poor whites , on the other hand, were driven into badly paid casual work because of competition from the slave system.

Why did non slave owning whites fight so hard to protect slavery?  

I think this can be partly explained by an almost religious sense of racial superiority, and by a fear of loss of relative status ,if slaves became free.

The condition of slaves was appalling. Slaves were whipped by their masters for transgressions.

 In practice many of them could not marry, because a husband could be sold to a different owner to the one that bought his wife.

In some states, slaves were forbidden to be educated. Even to this day, there is a lack of investment in  basic education in some of the former Confederate States.

The deep racism that underlay slavery came to light when, towards the end of the war, manpower for the Confederate Army was scarce.  An Irish general in the Confederate Army, Patrick Cleburne, proposed that Blacks be recruited to Confederate Army in return for being freed of slavery.

The Confederate War Department rejected the proposal on the grounds that Black people would not be suitable for military service on grounds of  “natural dullness, cowardice and indolence”. This was  racist ideological rubbish , as shown by the exceptional bravery of the Black Americans who fought in the Union Army. Black soldiers in the Union Army, if captured, were likely to be executed in defiance of the conventions of war.

 In the end, very few were recruited, to the Confederate forces, largely because the promise of liberation was confined to the soldier himself, and not to his wife and children.

What happened to the liberated slaves after the war was over?

This question is not explored as fully  in this book as I would have liked. In Georgia, a large part of the confiscated land in the state was allocated by Union General William Sherman to be given  in 40 acre holding to former slaves.

 But in other places, the confiscated land was sold off, at a discount, to speculators from the North. Elsewhere the ex slaves were left to their own devices.

Indeed an attempt was made to reintroduce elements of slavery through so called “black codes” which restricted free movement, and wage bargaining by ex slaves.

There is one issue , very topical today, which is touched on briefly….voting rights for African Americans.

In an impromptu speech, delivered just  after the War had ended, President Lincoln suggested that the newly liberated African Americans might be given the right to vote. One of the people in the audience for that speech was John Wilkes Booth, an actor . On hearing this suggestion, Booth immediately set about plotting to murder President Lincoln, an enterprise  which unfortunately he completed successfully.

As I said at the outset, this is an excellent book. It relies on private correspondence, as well as public statements,  to gain insights into public opinion in the Confederacy.

I have just finished reading two very well written biographies of Conservative Prime Ministers, Neville Chamberlain and Edward Heath, the first of whom held Prime Ministerial office in the 1930’s and the latter in the 1970’s. 

“Neville Chamberlain’s legacy…Hitler , Munich and the path to war”  was written by Nicholas Milton, published by Pen and Sword.

The other book is an autobiography , and is entitled “The Course of My life “ and is by  Edward Heath, and published  in 1998 by Hodder and Stoughton.

Chamberlain and Heath’s political lives span the entire period of British history from 1920 to 2000, and the two books are a good introduction to this long period of British history, and show how the priorities ( and “philosophy”) of a major political party  adapts to changed circumstances.

CHAMBERLAIN

Neville Chamberlain is, of course, remembered for his attempts to find a modus vivendi with Hitler by forcing Czechoslovak territorial concessions. But there was much more to Chamberlain than this.

He was Minister for Health in the 1920s, and was responsible for initiating a huge programme of social housing. 

He introduced Widows Pensions.

 He was a “Levelling up “ Prime Minister , who actually did some levelling up. 

He was not impeded in this by any free market dogma. He had been a local councillor and Mayor in Birmingham before entering the House of Commons, and had seen poverty at first hand. 

He was no pacifist. As Chancellor of the Exchequer, after the 1936 General Election, he imposed a 3p in the £ income tax increase to pay for more defence spending, particularly of aircraft. This investment proved important in the Battle of Britain.

But when it came to negotiating for peace, Chamberlain failed to understand Hitler, who was a gambler and utterly reckless. Chamberlain acted towards Hitler as if he was a normal calculating politician. 

Chamberlains did buy significant extra time for British rearmament by appeasing Hitler in 1938.

 The ”Irish Times” wrote in September 1938 of this that Chamberlain 

“had done more than any other individual save mankind from another war”.

The paper added that this had required great courage. De Valera also admired Chamberlains policy in 1938.

If Chamberlain’s political life is to be evaluated on the basis of whether he achieved his goal, which was peace in Europe, he failed, and the failure was sadly evident to him before his death in 1940.

HEATH

The great goal of Edward Heath’s political life also was peace in Europe. Heath sought to reach that goal by bringing the UK into the European Union, which he saw as a structure of peace in Europe, binding countries so closely together  economically that they could never contemplate war with one another. 

Fortunately for Edward Heath , he did not live to see  his work  partly undone, when the UK  voted to leave the EU in the 2016 Referendum. He had died in 2005.

Edward Heath was an excellent writer,  and his autobiography keeps the reader’s attention over its full 736 pages. 

He gives a good account of his personal life.

He was brought up in a semi detached house on the Kent coast. His father was a qualified carpenter who made a living as a small builder. 

Edward Heath became an undergraduate in Oxford University before the War, on the basis of his academic results. While there he became active in college politics, and in the student Conservative Party. 

As a student politician, he opposed Chamberlains appeasement politics in 1938, having observed Hitlers Nuremberg Rally in person. 

The book gives an entertaining account of Heath’s search for a parliamentary seat after the War,  in which he  had served bravely.

He gives an entertaining account of his conversations with different constituency associations.

 One association wanted an assurance that he would reply to all correspondence personally , and in longhand, as the previous MP had done. Heath would not give that assurance, so he had to look elsewhere.

Another wanted an MP who might become a Minister. 

This  seat was Bexley in Kent, just on the eastern edge of London. He was elected to serve that constituency in the General Election of 1950. Heath served it loyally as its MP. And Bexley remained loyal to him too, despite his public differences with the leadership of Margaret Thatcher.

Heath devotes much of the book to his work in negotiating British entry to the EU. 

 He points out that the true political nature of the EU was set out for the British people. It was not presented as just an economic arrangement. This was done before their Parliament voted to join the EU and the people approved it on this basis in a referendum in 1975.  They were not misled at the time of that referendum, as Brexiters tried to argue in 2016.

Heath  gives his version of the difficult relationship he had with Margaret Thatcher. 

Early in their career they had much in common, and were good friends. It is a pity she did not find an opportunity to bring him back into government at some stage after she replaced him as leader of the Party in 1977.  On the other hand he may have expected too much too soon. 

 The breach between them, and their philosophies remains unhealed, with the Thatcher version of conservatism ultimately triumphant. 

The title of the Chamberlain book suggests the book would reveal Chamberlain’s “legacy.” It does not do so. 

My own assessment is that the actual legacy of Chamberlain’s efforts to avoid a Second World War was to give any form of “appeasement”  a bad name. The perceived failure of what is called appeasement in 1938 has led to mistakes by British and American leaders negotiating with dictators since then…..for example by making the wrong assumption that Saddam Hussein had weapons  of mass destructionin 1991 , when he did not,  and  then going to war on that  false basis. 

Hitler may not have been bluffing in 1938, but Saddam WAS bluffing in 1991.

Both Prime Ministers has outside hobbies which helped them keep their minds relaxed despite the pressures of Prime Ministerial office. 

In Chamberlains case, his interests were angling, birdwatching and the study of moths and butterflies. 

In Heath’s case, his outside interests were music and sailing, in both of which he reached a very high standard.

IRELAND

The Chamberlain book deals very slightly with his relations with Ireland. 

He settled the economic war in 1938, on financial terms that were favourable to Ireland, something that is forgotten in Ireland. 

He also gave Ireland back the Treaty ports, which enabled Ireland to remain neutral in the war. 

These  two very important developments are not explored in the book.

In his book, Edward Heath devotes a chapter to Ireland. 

He approved the introduction of internment without trial  by the Stormont  government. This was justified that juries would be intimidated because juries would be intimidated. He seems to have given insufficient thought, then or since, to the outworking of this radical decision. He did not explore alternatives.

On the other hand, he was the first UK Prime Minister to say that the UK had no selfish interest in Ireland. He was the first UK PM to visit this state , when he met Liam Cosgrave in Baldonnel in 1973. Earlier Britsh PMs, in the previous 50 years, had expected their Irish counterpart to go to London.

He sought to negotiate a settlement to the conflict in the Agreement reached at Sunningdale.  He claimed  that , at Sunningdale in 1973, Liam Cosgrave lacked the courage to  promise to hold a referendum to remove Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution.  These Articles included a territorial claim by Dublin to rule Northern Ireland. This was to be  a price  paid for setting up a Council of Ireland, with consultative functions. 

Given that partition had been accepted in practice by Dublin as early as 1925, this territorial claim should never have been inserted in the Irish Constitution in 1937.  But once it was there, removing it was bound to be divisive. 

Heath seemed to have forgotten that Cosgrave headed a coalition government, and that some of his  strong minded Ministers were quite nationalistic. The main opposition party, Fianna Fail, was even more nationalistic. The risk of defeat in such a Referendum, and a resulting government split , was vey very high. 

Lack of courage was the last thing of which Liam Cosgrave could be accused..

This shows that even enlightened British leaders sometimes have a poor understanding of Ireland. 

 “Peril” by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, published by Simon and Schuster, is an account of the last year of the outgoing Trump Administration, and the first year of the Biden Administration.

It is full of atmospheric detail, but lacks analysis and an easy to follow and coherent narrative.

I found the background to the rushed US and allied exit from Afghanistan revealing, but also incomplete.

I was in Washington, as EU Ambassador,  in 2009 when President Obama announced to assembled Ambassadors that he planned to dramatically increase US troop presence in the country….. to initiate the  so called “Surge” .

 Obama was motivated by a desire to strengthen  the US global military position, and also to make Afghanistan  human rights respecting democracy.

 It seemed over ambitious to me at the time, in light of the very recent  US failure to achieve similar goals in Iraq.

“Peril” tells us that Obama’s vice President at the time, Joe Biden, was totally opposed to the Surge. But Hillary Clinton, Secretary Gates and the generals prevailed. The Surge went ahead.

 When President Trump took over, he wanted to get US troops out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible. But inertia , and lack of focus on his part,  meant that he never actually did it.  It fell to Biden to implement  this part of the Trump agenda ( just as he follows the Trump agenda on China).

 The actual withdrawal was a botched job, and Afghans who had loyally served the allies were abandoned.  Woodward and Costa offer no explanations for this.

The book does offer an insight into Biden’s style of negotiation with Congress. He is tough and relentless in his pursuit of detail. He was, and is, determined to put money in the pockets of working class Americans . He has been so good at this that his Stimulus Bills may have contributed to demand led inflation in the US.

Did Donald Trump’s contribution to inciting violence, and   to the attempt to overturn the vote of the people, add up to a crime for which he could be convicted in a court of law?

I believe the answer is to be found in the speech made by Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate leader, after the second attempt to impeach Trump had failed.

Describing what happened on 6 January as a “disgrace” and an “act of terrorism”, he said

“There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible “

but added

 “by the strict criminal standard, the President’s speech probably was not incitement”.

Donal Trump, after all he has done, still leads the Republican polls.

The peril to American democracy comes from kindly, decent Americans, who are putting cultural and party loyalty , ahead of the interests of democracy in America.

I have just reread “Revolutionary Iran, a history of the Islamic Republic” by the late Michael Axworthy, who was a leading expert on Iran in the UK Foreign Office.

Iran is home to one of the world’s oldest civilizations. Its population is well educated and instinctively pro Western.  70% of Iranians said in an opinion poll a few years back that they would favour better relations with the West.

The terrorists who attacked the US on 9/11 came from America’s ally Saudi Arabia, and not from Iran.

 Yet it is Iran than has had to endure the most severe western trade and investment sanctions over the last 30 years, while Saudi Arabia is courted assiduously by both Trump and Biden Administrations.

Iran was supportive of the US in the wake of 9/11, and allowed US planes to over fly Iran during initial US actions  against the Taliban in Afghanistan  who were sheltering the 9/11 terrorists. Yet President Bush included Iran in the “axis of Evil”  in the speech he gave in response to 9/11. I do not understand why he did this.

This   negative US attitude to Iran may be due to the fact that Israel has developed back channels for cooperation with the Saudis,  while the Iran/Israel relationship is marked by enduring hostility. But the US should consider itself free to develop its own foreign policy without always adopting the Israeli view. In any event, the Israeli position has not been consistent. Israel helped Iran in its decade long war with Iraq.

The policy of sanctioning Iran dates back to legislation passed by the US Congress in 1996, and has become ever more severe since then.

 When one looks at the failure of US sanctions in changing the politics of Cuba, and the continuing failure of US sanctions against Iran, one must question the efficacy of sanctions as  a diplomatic tool.

In recent times the Iranian regime has indeed become more and more oppressive, with liberal us of execution as a means of dealing with opposition.

 But there have been times when the Iranian leadership was open to compromise. Khatami and Rafsanjani were open to compromise, but these opportunities were not taken up in any sustained way by western governments. In the early years after the Islamic revolution, election were somehat free and fair, but the 2009 elections were rigged.

There is a long standing democratic tradition in Iran, dating back to the democratic constitution of 1906.

Unfortunately that 1906 constitution was overthrown in 1908 by the then Shah, with help from the Russians and the British, who felt they could more easily do business with an autocratic regime. A similar exercise in supressing Iranian democracy was undertaken by the last Shah with aid of the British and the Americans in the 1950s. Again the outsiders felt they could get better access to Iranian oil from autocrats than from democrats.

Axworthy deals extensively with long and  bloody war that followed from an Iraqi attack on Iran.

This book filled a major gap in my knowledge of the Middle East, and I recommend it.